Chapter 54

Wei Li Lian
Princess Elora
The Dungeon

Li Lian felt the coldness of the bowl numb her cracked lips. Her mouth was dry and she was parched for water.

A lone tear stroked her cheek. Coldness was what surrounded her. She was alone, abandoned, unwanted, and unloved. It was winter and nobody was there to warm her.

The Grand Dowager was right. What was there to live for? The harshness of life was unbearable. She was exhausted and tired to carry on.

Li Lian placed the bowl down and pulled her tattered prison garments to wipe her tears.

Regret had become her friend. Pain had become her lover. There was no reason to go on. The one person who pledged to love her forever, her only chance and hope, he was no more.

She did not know which death would be better. The death in her lover’s hands, where she died in spite and hoped he would face regret and remorse forever. Or death by her hand, where he would be spiteful against her forever, that she was wicked to leave him with no explanations and enough apologies.

Yet, thinking again, she owed him nothing. He had sentenced her to die. What happened to his promises where he stated he could not live without her?

Her index finger circled the rim of the bowl in contemplation. Sadly, she said to herself.

“In life, if we could be as when we first met
What need would we have to mourn painted fans when the autumn winds arrived?
Thoughtlessly, change twisted your heart, old lover.”

Li Lian was surprised to hear a voice respond to her poem.

“You say to me that hearts of old lovers change easily
Words spoken during happy times, a clear dawn, a vow
All of it broken hither and thither, my heart aches
Tears like rain patter down, eternal resentment consumes me.”

Li Lian looked at her beloved as he walked in through the same gate the Grand Dowager just exited.

His hazel eyes pierced right into her soul. Naught was displayed on his visage. There was nothing to take away from his presence so as to derive hope.

Unlike the Grand Dowager, Yuwen Hong had no problem crossing his legs and sitting opposite her on the dirty floor. It was a relief to smell his beautiful scent and not the rotten putrid of the dungeon.

Yuwen Hong did not take long to notice the bowl, which he picked and got a whiff of. As he registered the contents of the concoction, his eyes locked with hers and rage instantly dressed them.

“Wife,” his voice bit her with his disappointment, “we said we shall never part till the Heavens merged with the earth, yet you want to leave me alone?" He tsked. "As if you could not be any more selfish.”

“What is wrong with accepting my fate and taking matters into my own hands?”

Yuwen Hong's eyes enlarged, amazed she had the nerve to defend herself.

“It is cowardly. That is what is wrong,” he accused.

Cowardly? He did not understand what hell she was already facing and the volcano that continuously blew fire at her. Because in his mind, she was the oppressor and no part of her ever the victim.

“I am tired,” she whispered.

“If you are tired, then imagine how I feel.”

"Imagining how you feel will not make me better. It adds to my pain."

For a bit, a second, softness flashed on his face before he pulled back his mask.

“Why did you do this to us? We were so happy, but then you stole that from us.”

Li Lian snorted in annoyance. “I wanted to stay happy too, and if I could, I would. However, I did not have the power to choose whom I was born to. If you want someone to blame, turn to the Heavens.”

If the world told her to kill Yuwen Hong or kill herself, she would never lay a finger on him. How did he easily turn around and point the knife at her?

She loved him. Didn't he love her back as much?

Li Lian watched him grab the bowl, and already, before it unfolded, she knew what he was about to do. His temper was predictable.

A loud clang pronounced from the walls as the bowl crashed into pieces, the liquid camouflaging the brown wall. A litter of white scattered on the floor, while some landed on the corner that kept her thin blankets.

A few curses passed his mouth as he punched the table, which thankfully did not give in to the pressure.

"If you need something, my neck is available for your hands," she said sarcastically.

Lines formed on his forehead, then his teeth clanged together in frustration as he stood up.

"I am so angry!" He yelled at the wall. "I want to kill someone!" He kicked the poor wall. "I hate this life!" He punched the wall, and this time, he left a hole in it.

Still not satisfied, he growled and kicked the wall, again, for the last time.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Luo Meng peek into her cell to ensure that all was well. When he realised Yuwen Hong was having a fit, he nodded at her and disappeared.

Yuwen Hong started straightening his clothes. The twisting of his face represented his pain. He raised his bleeding fist and blew on it.

Feeling a bit calm, he reverted to his original spot and sat down.

Noticing how she was eyeing his hand, the lover part of her wanting to check on him, he pulled his hand from the table and hid it in his sleeves.

Her insides buckled and crumpled. He was so near yet far away.

Yuwen Hong cleared his throat to start conversation again.

“Do you know what came to mind when people told me the truth?”

She shook her head.

“I would say to myself, ‘It cannot be true because that will mean my time to die has come. Without Li Lian I will die.’”

His words of loss caused her mind to cycle through emotions faster than a charging horse. Her leveledness dissipated from stability to rocky as she fought a torrent of emotions, each of them striving for dominance.

“When my father passed, I lost the strength to live because he was my rock and refuge. I looked up to Fuhuang. He would always show me the way when I got lost.” Yuwen Hong's eyes looked into the distance as he remembered his unfortunate past. “Inside me, it became a snowy winter―cold and desolate. I would sit and get drunk while playing the qin.

“Because sometimes the darkness was too overwhelming. The spirit of death was sultry that I began to view death as my only escape.”

He subconsciously reached for her hand and kneaded her fingers with his unhurt hand. It was an unexpected touch she did not know she needed.

Li Lian welcomed the shot of buried feelings that spiked within her system. Her stomach raged with forbidden warmth and giddiness.

“No, I would say. It is not time for me to die if Fuhuang’s death has not been avenged. Let me just live until then.” He took a deep breath and sighed. “That is how I would survive. That is what would stop my body from sweating, bringing back sense to my mind, for the darkness to lift."

She nodded in understanding. He had been through so much.

“And the time came when I met you." He smiled adorably as he remembered it. “In your presence, there was eternal bliss that overpowered the darkness that ruled over me. Suddenly, I had a reason to live.”

“I did not know you felt that way in the grand scheme of the bigger picture." She squeezed his hand.

Her gesture had him realise their hands grasped each other, and like she had an infectious skin disease, he backed away from her.

The familiar feeling of abandonment gripped her and tears gathered in her eyes.

What was once whole had been shattered; where there was once peace was emptiness, echoes of a love they put their everything into dulled into nothingness. There was no going back, and no holding of hands could cure their circumstance.

From the sleeves of his garments, Yuwen Hong pulled out a small bottle and placed it where the bowl had been on the table.

“I made this for your father years ago. It is the Dragon Poison."

Li Lian licked her dry lips, shocked that he was actually going to kill her himself.

"It does not kill you at once but takes from you slowly. You are to drink a portion daily and suffer through it until its effects subside for the next dose. It works through consistency.”

Such evilness.

“When you drink it, you will feel like you are lying in the pits of fire. Every part of your body will be subjected to unimaginable pain. It will be as if all of your body is being shattered into pieces.”

He picked the bottle and removed the cap, then nudged it even further to her. The poison was so toxic that she could smell it from a distance.

If smelling it was daunting, to drink it would be her demise.

“Do you want to take the first sip?” he probed.

Heartbreak was grief that gruelled her reasoning. It was a shard in her guts, it was being choked and breath being stolen from her body to welcome short circuits in her mind.

One thing for sure, as soon as she drank the vile in that bottle, she would never forgive him.

“W-W-Why will you not let me explain?”

He sat back and rubbed the back of his neck. “It doesn't matter what the explanation will be. The crime is your bloodline, and as long as that cannot be changed, as a filial son, I am obliged to honour my words.”

She swallowed to stop herself from wailing.

“If you will not take the first sip, then I will,” he said.

Yuwen Hong shuffled as he reached into his sleeves again and produced another identical small bottle. “I am not afraid to jump first, you always liked jumping after me.”

Fleeting images of them naked and about to jump at a waterfall depressed her mind. Memories, that was all they were, there to gift her with pain.

“What do you mean by 'you shall take the first sip’?”

“I mean just that,” he opened the second bottle, “because what shall we do? I really can't be without you. At the same time, I promised to avenge my father. Both terms should be honoured.”

“But…”

“In death we shall not part, drink.” He took his bottle and swallowed without thinking twice.

“Yuwen Hong…” She was at a loss for words as she watched him swallow and his face mangle sourly.

Without thinking twice, she also swallowed the Dragon Poison. Horrible was an understatement. The poison tasted like chilli, forbidden spices, and fire on your tongue.

She groaned and banged her head on the table. Tossed and turned on the floor as tears flowed.

No words could describe how awful it was. The path of the liquid down her throat, she felt it.

Yuwen Hong was willing to go through such torture with her? That is when realisation hit her.

Bai Yuwen Hong she loved, and not in a million ways would she give him up.

Her body instantly started to hit up with oncoming fever, and all she could do was crawl to him and sit on his lap. Her legs entwined around him, rested her head on his shoulder, and her arms hugged him.

“I love you,” he whispered into her ear and embraced her back.

She breathed in to hold back more tears. “Forever, I will love you too."

S.V